Razer and Philips Hue team up to make your home lighting react to your games

If you’re a fan of Razer gaming products you’ll probably be familiar with the company’s colorful Chroma lighting system. It brings dynamic rainbow backlights and accents to everything from keyboards and mice, to controllers and headphones – all of which can be synced to your computer to create a lighting pattern that delights and perplexes in equal measure. 

For anyone that would like to take this color customization even further and bathe, say, their entire home in that neon gamer glow, Razer is teaming up with Philips Lighting to make that possible. 

Announced at CES 2018, the partnership will make it possible for those with Razer Chroma devices and Philips Hue smart lighting in their home to sync up these systems and experience an immersive gaming environment. 

Well color us immersed

While not all game developers have used the Chroma SDK to integrate the dynamic lighting systems into their games, there's a long list of titles that do support it. Popular titles such as Overwatch and Quake Champions, for example, already have lighting effects that dynamically change during play. 

Keyboard glowing red when your health is low? So will your whole room. No pressure. Lights flickering in the game? They will in your own room. Now that's atmosphere. You can see a little bit of the system in action below:

To get this immersive system you will, of course, need a bit of kit. You’ll need a Philips Hue V2 bridge, Philips Hue color-capable lights and the latest Philips Hue app software update, and a PC or laptop with the Razer Synapse 3 software installed, which will be free to anyone who owns a Razer Chroma-enabled device from January 9.

This software will be where you'll be able to configure your set-up, whether you want each light to turn a different color and sync all your lights together. 

Once you have all that it’s simply a matter of waiting for the software update to roll out on January 9 which will allow all the games that have been designed with the Philips Hue and Razer Chroma Link integration and light effects abilities to start syncing. 

Apparently you don’t even have to be playing a game to make the most of the syncing between Chroma and Hue – it’ll be possible to sync up your gear and select any lighting “to create a perfect ambience, whether relaxing, hosting friends or simply surfing the web”.

It might be nice to bathe your home in a soothing blue before jumping into comments sections. 

• Read all the latest announcements from CES 2018

January 09, 2018 at 05:29PM
Emma Boyle